Hey y'all,

I cannot believe we are already almost done with January! It has been a busy month at work between covering for a few people on vacation as well as getting all the required forms for employee taxes ready to go but we are heading into February on a calmer note.

1. What I'm Eating This Week:

With my birthday this week, dinners are all over the place! I did make some sheet pan fried rice inspired by this recipe and Greek chicken bowls for lunches this week. Here are my dinners:

2. What I'm Reminiscing About:

Past birthdays! Here's celebrating 25 at the Carolina Inn's tea service with friends.

3. What I'm Loving:

I went on Friday to the US Figure Skating Nationals Rhythm Dance Competition as part of an early birthday gift from my parents. It was a wonderful night watching some of my favorites skate.

4. What I've Been Up To:

In January, I have pet sat for two different friends, went to figure skating, deep cleaned my closet and sent more items to ThredUp, book club, and getting back into the routine after the holidays.

5. What I'm Dreading:

No dreadful thoughts over here this week.

6: What I'm Working On:

Getting back into a morning routine - over the holidays I threw off my sleep schedule and with pet sitting I have not found my groove again. I only have one weekend out of town in February so I hope I can get back to getting up, a 15 min exercise video, and my quiet time then not rushing to get ready.

7: What I'm Excited About

I ordered the Flawless in Five set from BeautyCounter (my sweet sorority sister McKenzie is my consultant, you can follow her and her sweet family here). I have had this on my list for awhile and transitioning to safer products is one of my personal goals in 2020. My set should arrive tomorrow.

8. What I'm Watching/Reading

US Figure Skating on NBC/NBCSN was the only thing on my DVR last weekend. I also have been loving Project Runway, Prodigal Son, and the Bold Type is back this month.
For reading, of the five books I have read, I only read two as physical books - My Friend Anna and The Bride Test. I will share my thoughts about them next week in my January reads.

9. What I'm Listening To:

I have been on a big audiobook kick and completed An American Marriage, The Hate You Give, and Everything, Everything.

I am currently listening to In The Woods on my commute and during work hours I have been listening to Anthony O'Neal on Annie F. Down's podcast, But Not All At Once podcast, and the Dateline podcast (episodes turned into podcasts).

10. What I'm Wearing:

11. What I'm Doing This Weekend:

Celebrating my birthday! I have a busy weekend filled with taking Barre3 classes, dinners with friends, supper club, church, and adult errand like my car's service and inspection & renewing my passport.

12: What I'm Looking Forward To Next Month:

CELINE DION - I am headed to her concert at PNC Arena this month

Celebrating my birthday

Galentine's Day at my friend Jordan's house

13: What Else is New:

Hey y'all,

It has been almost two months since I shared my last Amazon lately post so I thought I would share my recent purchases. A few of my goals for this year are to transition to more sustainable storage in my kitchen and to

DECEMBER

More collagen peptides. I add this to smoothies to bulk up the protein factor. I decided to change up the brand and got the Further Food kind rather than the typical Vital Protein. I don't see any difference.

Write the Word Bible Journal. This was a gift for my older sister for Christmas. I love the WTW journals from Cultivate and Amazon had it for the same price plus prime shipping. These are the old style of WTW journals just to let you know. They have since changed the covers a bit as well as some of the formatting.

Maple Sugar. I made these gluten and dairy free snickerdoodles for my book club's holiday party in December. I ordered the maple sugar on Amazon but ended up finding it for a better deal at Whole Foods that afternoon. I tried to cancel my order but it was too late so now I need to find creative uses for all the maple sugar apart from snickerdoodles.

Honest Beauty Extreme Length Mascara. - I have realized over the years that I am sensitive to a lot of mascaras and will rub off all makeup and mascara throughout the day. I had heard great things about the Honest mascara and since it is made of cleaner ingredients I thought I would give it a shot. I have not had a reaction to it and really love the look it gives. Plus for under $15 it is a great price to make a clean beauty swap.

Amazon Basics Lightning to USB - My USB/lightening cable in my car was in bad shape so I decided to grab this one for my room/nightstand and move my other cable into my car for emergency charging.

2020 calendar. I use a wall calendar to track my workouts on with stickers I grab in the Target Dollar Spot. Well, it was almost January so I needed to pick out one and this one reminded me of Rifle Paper Co but at a lower price.

NUTRO Dry Cat Food - When I don't want to go to PetCo for MaxCat's food (he has a sensitive stomach/gas issues with other brands), Amazon to the rescue. I grabbed this to make sure we were set through the holidays.

Pyrex Meal Prep Glass Storage set - I received an Oxo glass storage set as a gift and used a gift card to pick up this set. I have loved these pieces and would recommend the 18 piece set if you are starting to convert to glass storage containers.

Bic Multipurpose Lighters 4 pack - very random but I had run out of my other click lighter and I kept forgetting to pick one up whenever I was out at Target. These set of 4 works great and now I am set for at least a year.

Christmas snowflake ornaments - I participated in Kristin Winchester's ornament exchange when she posted about it on her page. I had always loved the Southern Weddings Magazine's ornament exchange so I was happy to participate. However, after checking out a few stores I wasn't in love with anything, so Amazon to the rescue. I sent four of these to my fellow ornament group.

JANUARY

Vega Protein Made Simple in Chocolate and Vanilla - I ran out of protein powder in late Fall so I decided to check out these when they were on a deal of the day. I enjoy Vega protein and these are made of very simple ingredients.

Stasher bags in sandwich and snack size. These were also a deal of the day and I had been eyeing stasher bags for a while. I grabbed the two sizes and have enjoyed using them for snacks like pretzels, popcorn, and graham crackers.

Hey y'all,

We almost made it to the weekend and while it was not a short week for me since I did work on Monday, I am ready that this week has kicked off birthday celebrations! We are officially one week away from my 30th birthday!

one. Kilwin's Ice Cream

Last week I met up with my friend Jordan to hang out and catch up. We wanted to check out a local ice cream shop but when we arrived they were still closed for the winter holidays. Welp, to Kilwin's instead. If you haven't gone to Kilwin's they are often located in beach/vacation places and they are a chocolate/treats/ice cream shop. I got a cone of the Kilwin's Chocolate Caramel Cashew.

two. US Figure Skating National Championships

Today I am actually leaving the office a little early to scoot over to Greensboro to attend the 2020 Toyota US Figure Skating National Championships. The senior portion started last night with the pairs short program and the ladies short program. Today I am headed with my friend Maryscott to see the rhythm dance competition. The competition lasts through Sunday so this weekend I will be watching from home on NBC/NBCSN. Here's a picture from when Greensboro hosted in 2015 and I went to the ladies long program competition.

three. Libby App.

I have been loving the Libby App for audiobooks lately. It connects to my local library's digital collection and it is very easy to use. Since January I have finished three audio books so I would call that a win. I am currently listening to Into the Wood by Tana French. It is the first in the Dublin Murder Squad.

four. Banana Bread.

This weekend I had some bananas in my freezer that needed to be used up so banana bread baking time happened. I used this recipe but left out the nuts. I ended up adding two scoops of Collagen Peptides to add some protein to the mix and while it did make it a darker loaf it turned out perfectly.

five. Sussexit.

If you have been following all the Royal news over the last few weeks you know that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have stepped down from their royal duties and will now reside more in North America (Canada). I have always loved the Royal family so this is heartbreaking to hear but I know that Harry and Meghan came to this decision as something that is best for their family. If you want some fun accounts and podcasts to listen to regarding the whole situation here are some of my favorites:

Hey y'all,

Last week the weather was gorgeous here in NC and I was able to pull off a dress without tights in January. Winter has now officially arrived so expect next week's work wear to be filled with long sleeves, scarves, and a giant coat and gloves behind the scenes. Here's what I wore last week to my casual office. As always, if you want to look at my past work wear looks, you can find them all here.

Hey y'all,

Woo, it has been an officially hitting the ground running kind of week at work. It's officially 2020 and my birthday month! I have written out my goals (here) and I am ready to take on the month especially after a nice long break from the office. The past week has been filled with lots of tight deadlines at work so I'm ready for a nice relaxing weekend including seeing my book club to discuss this month's book. Here are five (really six) things I am loving this week:

one. Jeopardy's Greatest of All Time Tournament.

I grew up watching the local news, national news, then Jeopardy and Wheel. While I don't always watch Jeopardy every night, I was excited about this tournament of James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings, and Brad Rutter. It started on Tuesday night at 8pm and consists of two games each night then the totals are combined to determine the winner. Tuesday Ken won by $200, Wednesday, James took the title, and last night Ken secured his second win.The winner will need to win three nights for the $1 million prize. I'm rooting for Ken to win as he hasn't won a tournament.

two. Slow Evenings After Work.

For the first week back to work, I have been glad that not all of my activities are back. Monday, I had BSF and we dug back into Hebrews but the rest of this week I have had nothing else on the calendar. I have enjoyed evenings in bed reading, trips to the library, and an evening run to Aldi for groceries so I don't have to go this weekend.

three. My Christmas Gifts.

four. Old Navy Flannel Pajama Pants.

These are my favorite pjs and I have a nice stack after a few years. They come in a few lengths so they are perfect for my tall friends too and amazing patterns. They are currently on sale for under $10 plus another 30% off. If you watched the Netflix movie Klaus you would recognize these characters. Old Navy did a Klaus collection and it looks like only the kids flannel pants are still available.

five. Mezzo Piano.

six. ThredUp.

I did another deep clean of my closet over the break and sent a lot of items to ThredUp that had not been doing well on Poshmark. As much as I enjoy Poshmark, sometimes you just want the items out of your house. They accepted about 70% of what I sent and donated the rest. You can order a clean out kit here and I just reused Amazon boxes to send in my items. Here's what's left of my closet cleanout from the first box.